Little Talks, Big Trucks
by Kurohane Ookami
Summary: Ricky's not exactly a people person. She'd rather stick with her truck than be caught dead doing a normal job like normal people. She just never thought that her job would end up involving giant alien robots that turned into cars. Slight AU, M for language. TF-DOTM.
1. Chapter 1

"_Frost to Ricky. Come in Ricky."_

Her eye cracked open, and she found herself staring at the clock displayed on the dashboard with irritation.

_4: 38 AM _blinked back cheerily in red, further annoying her.

Fumbling around for several moments in the dark, her hand finally grasped the radio and nearly yanked it from the cord.

"Damnit Jack, you'd better have a damned good reason why you're getting me the fuck up before ten in the fucking morning." She snarled. "And if you say because you're fucking bored and have nothing to do, I am going to drive my fucking ass after you and take you out."

"_Well, that was part of it. The other's just checking in on ya_

_. What's your twenty?" _

"Is I have no fucking clue a good enough answer?" she retorted dryly. "I don't know. I'm too fucking old to pay attention to this shit anymore. But since you're obviously talking to me, I'd assume we're in the same state."

"_Hell, Ricky. Never thought I'd see the day you actually admit you're old."_

"If early forties is old these days, then you're a toddler, you cheeky brat." Ricky snapped, pulling herself up on the steering wheel. Her green blanket shifted before sliding down onto the floor of the cab, to which she took no notice.

"_Yeah, yeah. Still better than being an old woman!"_

"Shut it, you rolling roadblock."

"_Don't you go and insult my truck now! She's beautiful as is!"_

"Goodnight, Jack. You dick." Ricky retorted before cranking the volume on the radio down to minimum. Grabbing blindly for her blanket on the floor, she settled back down on the comfortable leather seats and worked on falling back asleep.

-;-

There was something jabbing into her hip.

Muttering something unpleasant, Ricky rolled over, only to narrowly avoid taking out her eye on the gear shift.

"Son of a-" she hissed, bolting upright.

Oh, how she hated mornings.

Sliding over to the door, she yawned, smoothing her hair back over her head and skillfully pulling an elastic into the mess of curls as she did so.

It was cloudy overhead, still a bit dark due to the fact that it was still early. The other semis parked around the lot were still quiet, thankfully, and she navigated her way through the maze easily. She would assume so, considering that she had a good twenty years under her belt at least.

Her bladder was alerting her that she needed to use the restroom, and if she didn't pick up the pace, bad things would happen.

"Morning Ricky!" another one of the few women greeted as they passed. Ricky grunted something that could have been taken for a greeting before shuffling onwards, her mind focused on getting to wonder that was the porcelain god.

Or, in this case, the outhouse parked a few feet into the heavily forested area right by the lot.

-;-

Her business finished, Ricky was in a much better mood as she walked back to her semi. It was much larger than a couple of the trucks, and she had clearly spent a lot of time and effort into the paintjob. The gleaming dark blue, with the overlapping orange and yellow flames was her pride and joy, and if anyone even dared to think about touching the paint….well, it wouldn't end well. She had a shotgun lying in the passenger side seat for a reason, after all.

Clambering into her seat, she fished out her keys from her pocket and started up the engine, wanting to get going to the next town so she could shower, maybe find a coffee shop to grab something to eat.

Little did she know that this day was going to be the weirdest of her life.


	2. Chapter 2

She was definitely not in the best of moods at the moment, that much was obvious. She was being tailed by some damned city kitty, and if that wasn't bad enough, she was trapped in one hell of a lot of traffic with no apparent end in sight.

Grabbing at her radio, she radioed the truck farther ahead of her, recognizing the custom green paintjob as one of her closer co-workers.

"Hey Greg, can you tell what the hell's holding up traffic back here?" she sighed.

"_Looks like a rolling roadblock, Ricky. Maybe two kliks ahead."_

"That just ruined my day, Greg."

"_Sorry, Ricky." _

The only positive thing that Ricky got out of that situation was the fact that she could expect honesty from pretty much anyone who knew of the volatile older woman. After all, she was a veteran of the trade, and most people had learned the hard way why it wasn't such a good idea to get in her way. Ricky tended to be a little overprotective of her truck, and made sure that everyone knew just how much she was by displaying her temper whenever someone dared comment about it.

Reclining in her seat, she frowned, fiddling around with the radio. Unfortunately, the best she could get in these situations was some kind of country crap that was full of static at best.

"_Greg to Ricky. Looks like the road's clear."_

Ricky couldn't help but sigh in relief. The last thing she wanted to deal with right now was being late to deliver the trailer that was currently hooked to the back of her semi and get shit for it. Some people just didn't understand that truckers did their damned best to get the goods to their customers on time. Some people, however, were just assholes. Truckers and customers alike. One of the younger truckers, some kid barely out of school by the name of James, was one such person. He had little respect for anyone else, and constantly tried to go after the women when they were conveniently stopped at the same lot.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, Ricky seemed to be present whenever the idiot was around, and was sorely tempted to give the guy one hell of a good reason to leave the women alone. They had work to do, and so did he, even though he acted like it was all a joke. People like James gave the truckers a pretty bad reputation, including Ricky.

"Thanks Greg. Let me know if you happen to see James' ugly hide rolling around."

"_Will do, ma'am."_

She felt her lips curl upwards, and she chuckled. "You sound _so_ polite on the radio, Greg."

"_With you behind me? Fuck yeah I am." _Came the sarcastic reply. _"I'm stupid, not suicidal."_

"Well, at least you're learning." Ricky barked out a laugh before disconnecting from the line and pulling into another lane.

o-o-o-o

The hours flew by, and Ricky fell back into her comfortable silence. The radio was still fuzzing faintly in the background, but she had long gotten used to the sound. It was now something of a comfort to her, something that kept the silent cab from getting too monotonous. Though how that was to be accomplished considering that there was always going to be the deep rumbling bass of the engine sounding in her eardrums for as long as she owned the damned truck. Which, given her connection to it was going to be for a good many years yet.

Before she knew it, she'd finished her delivery, gotten paid, and was now happily sailing through Nevada's border when trouble hit in the form of an unlucky deer leaping out into the middle of the road.

Slamming her foot into the brakes, Ricky closed her eyes, realizing that there wasn't really anything else that she could do about what was about to happen.

There was the inevitable _thunk_ of something slamming into the grill, and a momentary shriek that she swore would be haunting her nightmares for the next couple of months.

Signaling, she pulled over to the side of the road, wanting to assess the damage and pry off the road kill that would otherwise be baked to the grill at this rate, given the rather high temperatures lately.

Wincing as she took note of the deer, she hauled herself back up into the cab of the truck and rummaged around for her heavy duty gloves that she saved especially for unexpected events such as this one.

That done, she walked back around front, grabbed a hold of the front legs, and yanked it off the front of the truck. Things like this didn't particularly bother her anymore, considering she'd been in the road kill business almost as long as she'd been in the trucking business.

"Sorry, Bambi." She sighed, clapping her hands together as she took a look at the grill to make sure that no fur or guts had managed to worm their way into the more delicate workings of the semi. That would be just what she needed; a couple of hours from now, smelling deer guts cooking in the engine. Wouldn't that be delicious?

Ricky pulled off the gloves before she climbed back into the semi, not wishing to get any more grime on the truck than she absolutely had to. The thing _was_ her baby.

o-o-o-o

It had to be at least several hours later that she saw the light flashing through the sky.

Slowing, her semi being the only vehicle on the lonely stretch of road, she watched as it came down a good handful of miles ahead, sending up one hell of a dust cloud that blew over her a couple of moments later.

In other words, something that perked up Ricky's attention. But that wasn't necessarily a good thing. She was known for sticking her nose into places that it didn't belong in. It wasn't really her fault; she just had an insatiable curiosity.

Picking up speed again, she zoomed on down the road, keeping a weather eye out for anything that looked as though it might have fallen from the sky.


End file.
